swampflower wrote:Ha, Ha - truly there is no "thing" to have an identity. So what is this "identity".

However, this sounds like name and form. Name and form support each other. There can be no name without form and no form without name. So how does this identity exist alone?

Ho ho, Swampie strikes again!

I find it helpful to visualize the "I" as a label badly applied. Like a kangaroo with a license plate tied to it's tail. The license plate has little if any relevance to the actual kangaroo and is a positive nuisance besides.

However, the name and form stuff raised an eyebrow here. We seem to be quite good at creating labels that have no referents. And certainly not every form has been named, or each dust mote would have a name. So I'm not sure what this means, although I have some suspicions. Care to clarify?

ps come to think of it, the first line quoted above shows an example of a name that has no associated form.

§ 29. NAME AND FORM.

§ 29 a.--Translated from the Visuddhi-Magga (chap. xvii.).

By "Name" are meant the three Groups beginning with Sensation [i.e., Sensation, Perception, and the Predispositions]; by "Form," the four elements and form derivative from the four elements.

§ 29 b.--Translated from the Visuddhi-Magga (chap. xviii.).

Name has no power of its own, nor can it go on of its own impulse, either to eat, or to drink, or to utter sounds, or to make a movement. Form also is without power and cannotp. 185 [Vis.xviii

go on of its own impulse. It has no desire to eat, or to drink, or to utter sounds, or to make a movement. But Form goes on when supported by Name, and Name when supported by Form. When Name has a desire to eat, or to drink, or to utter sounds, or to make a movement, then Form eats, drinks, utters sounds, makes a movement.

To make this matter clear they give the following illustration:

It is as if two men, the one blind from birth and the other a cripple, were desirous of going traveling. And the man blind from birth were to say to the cripple as follows: "See here! I am able to use my legs, but I have no eyes with which to see the rough and the smooth places in the road." And the cripple were to say to the man blind from birth as follows: "See here! I am able to use my eyes, but I have no legs with which to go forward and back." And the man blind from birth, pleased and delighted, were to mount the cripple on his shoulders. And the cripple sitting on the shoulders of the man blind from birth were to direct him, saying, "Leave the left and go to the right; leave the right and go to the left."

Here the man blind from birth is without power of his own, and weak, and cannot go of his own impulse or might. The cripple also is without power of his own, and weak, and cannot go of his own impulse or might. Yet when they mutually support one another it is not impossible for them to go.

In exactly the same way Name is without power of its own, and cannot spring up of its own might, nor perform this or that action. Form also is without power of its own, and cannot spring up of its own might, nor perform this or that action. Yet when they mutually support one another it is not impossible for them to spring up and go on."

§ 29 c.--Translated from the Visuddhi-Magga (chap. xx.).

And he knows as follows:

"No heap or collection of material exists for the production of Name and Form; nor are Name and Form sprungp. 186 [Vis.xx

from any such heap or collection of material; and when Name and Form cease, they do not go to any of the cardinal or intermediate points of the compass; and after Name and Form have ceased, they do not exist anywhere in the shape of heaped-up material. But, just as when a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound; and when the sound comes into existence, it does not come from any such store; and when it ceases, it does not go to any of the cardinal or intermediate points of the compass; and when it has ceased, it exists nowhere in a stored-up state; but having previously been non-existent, it came into existence in dependence on the body and neck of the lute and the exertions of the performer; and having come into existence passes away: in exactly the same way, all the elements of being, both those with form and those without, come into existence after having previously been non-existent; and having come into existence pass away.

Aemilius wrote:I think that now you are really making the mistake of postulating two objects...

what do you mean "i think"?since your name of me is me, i am necessarily mistaken.

also, i thought names were names. how can names be both names and persons? they cant, unless we bastardize the meaning of what it means to be a person, such that its equivalent with the meaning of what it means to be a name.

Aemilius wrote:I think that now you are really making the mistake of postulating two objects...

what do you mean "i think"?since your name of me is me, i am necessarily mistaken.

also, i thought names were names. how can names be both names and persons? they cant, unless we bastardize the meaning of what it means to be a person, such that its equivalent with the meaning of what it means to be a name.

Name and form do not exist independent of each other, they exist dependently, and like Nagarjuna says what exist dependently has no true existence, thus form has no true existence. Saying that "things are merely names" expresses the meaning that form or matter has no true existence. In some cases, say like Clint Eastwood, a person is really only the Name, his name is much more prominent than his mere material form would ever be.

what objects are there to speak of once you delegate everything to being simply a name?

rather than harming and changing the conventional existence of objects, Arya Nagarjuna establishes their ultimate truth -- their way (mode) of existing.

again, rather than harming conventional existence by changing everything into names, he shows what form (etc) itself really looks like (not what a word itself looks like)

In some cases, say like Clint Eastwood, a person is really only the Name, his name is much more prominent than his mere material form would ever be.

this is nothing other than a collection of people and their own private ideas, feelings, discriminations, etc. each of these are not the person who calls himself clint eastwood. that person is a mental factor dependently arisen on a mindstream.

do you not agree in a difference between an idea of the person and then actual functioning persons?

5heaps wrote:what objects are there to speak of once you delegate everything to being simply a name?

rather than harming and changing the conventional existence of objects, Arya Nagarjuna establishes their ultimate truth -- their way (mode) of existing.

again, rather than harming conventional existence by changing everything into names, he shows what form (etc) itself really looks like (not what a word itself looks like)

In some cases, say like Clint Eastwood, a person is really only the Name, his name is much more prominent than his mere material form would ever be.

this is nothing other than a collection of people and their own private ideas, feelings, discriminations, etc. each of these are not the person who calls himself clint eastwood. that person is a mental factor dependently arisen on a mindstream.

do you not agree in a difference between an idea of the person and then actual functioning persons?

What do we talk about when we talk about Clint Eastwood or someone else? Is it not a mere idea that we discuss?

a large part of what we see when we look at others are our own ideas. it takes concentration, skill, rationality etc to be able to relate to others properly such that we arent constantly projecting our own ideas onto others, and then mistaking them for what is actually there (the imputedly known person).

likewise when our own heaps appear to us we conceptualize based on those appearances. when we do this, due to our innate misapprehension of selfsufficiency, we appear to be like a governor in charge of good and bad feelings, who must defend himself and his territory from negative feelings and chase after good feelings etc.

in actuality though a governor separate from the conceptualized appearances does not exist. the person is a constantly changing mental factor on a mental consciousness, the conceptual appearance is a generality imputed on the parts of the person. they exist together in the same mental experience. the person is known by way of that conception, though when this happens it seems as though the person is selfsufficient, as if waiting around for various appearances to come along for the plucking.

I mean that it is quite normal for people to wish well for various characters of the films and TV-series. Although these characters are nonexistent as real persons, yet people experience feelings and emotions and make wishes for them. From this example you can understand that it is unnecessary to assume any "real" existence for the persons you see and know, and as has been stated before the ordinary people do not posses any real existence either.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy

Aemilius wrote:I mean that it is quite normal for people to wish well for various characters of the films and TV-series. Although these characters are nonexistent as real persons, yet people experience feelings and emotions and make wishes for them. From this example you can understand that it is unnecessary to assume any "real" existence for the persons you see and know, and as has been stated before the ordinary people do not posses any real existence either.

Well if this is how it is, then isn't giving and taking a valid practice when done with Donald Duck as an object? Perhaps we should all practice metta towards Batman and Robin?

ahem pardon the extreme examples... no insult intended it just seems a logical consequence to me...

Aemilius wrote:I mean that it is quite normal for people to wish well for various characters of the films and TV-series. Although these characters are nonexistent as real persons, yet people experience feelings and emotions and make wishes for them. From this example you can understand that it is unnecessary to assume any "real" existence for the persons you see and know, and as has been stated before the ordinary people do not posses any real existence either.

Well if this is how it is, then isn't giving and taking a valid practice when done with Donald Duck as an object? Perhaps we should all practice metta towards Batman and Robin?

Yeah, why not ? I remeber having met in a dream Donald Duck, and Magica De Spell, possibly even other characters,... I have a friend who has several times in a dream seen himself as Batman flying in the sky.

We should be aware that building a personality image for person is a valid business now adays. Members of the band Metallica tell us that they have different companies who create and take care of their images, their appearance & their persons.

The marketing business and advertising industry know how much can be done & must be done by image building, image creation, and so on...

These kind of things should make us aware that Name and Image is what really counts.

Hardness and solidity are also mind, mere ideas. If a thing is hard doesn't make it real, hardness is dependently originated.

Aemilius wrote:Hardness and solidity are also mind, mere ideas. If a thing is hard doesn't make it real, hardness is dependently originated.

you cant hold your ideas

likewise you define yourself using your own private ideas. the point is not that those ideas are you.

What kind of things would like me to quote ? Earlier I thought of quoting Nagarjuna and Tsongkhapa, as they have been qouted and explained in Joe Wilson's book Chandrakirti's Sevenfold Reasoning. There he quotes Nagarjuna's Precious Garland where it is explained that the conception of I does not arise if the aggregates are not conceived to exist truly. Thus it is explained that the conceiving of aggregates as real is a deeper kind of ignorance. And if you see aggregates as nonexistent the conception of I will naturally vanish too.I thought it better to rely on reason only, as far as possible.Here is Nagarjuna's Ratnavali or Precious Garland, the subject is discussed in the verses 30... 35 http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Nagarjuna/Garland_of_Ratnavali.html There are several other sources I thought of before, and could have quoted if necessary, I have to confess.

the precise meaning of Nagarjuna's texts has been debated for a long time. and yet not one of those realized scholar-yogi commentators has said that the world is just words/names/mental images. in fact its the opposite, the best modern scholars such as the Dalai Lama, Jeffrey Hopkins, Berzin, Michael Roach, etc, have to constantly refute this overly common rookie mistake.

so far i linked you audio where the Dalai Lama explicitly states that nameonly does not mnea that things are literally names. ive also told you what Jeffrey Hopkins says about the rose. i can find other such explicit statements. where have you found someone explicitly stating that the meaning of nameonly is that things are names?

"Just as a gold coin does not exist separately from its gold, so the emptiness of our body does not exist separately from our body, because it is simply our body's lack of inherent existence."

This points up the difference between lack of existence and lack of inherent existence. If they were the same, the above statement would make no sense at all. Thus, when you start with an existing object and subtract its inherent existence, something is left over. It does actually exist, just not inherently. It exists dependently, and free of mental imputations.

5heaps wrote:the precise meaning of Nagarjuna's texts has been debated for a long time. and yet not one of those realized scholar-yogi commentators has said that the world is just words/names/mental images. in fact its the opposite, the best modern scholars such as the Dalai Lama, Jeffrey Hopkins, Berzin, Michael Roach, etc, have to constantly refute this overly common rookie mistake.

so far i linked you audio where the Dalai Lama explicitly states that nameonly does not mnea that things are literally names. ive also told you what Jeffrey Hopkins says about the rose. i can find other such explicit statements. where have you found someone explicitly stating that the meaning of nameonly is that things are names?

What you say is alright as long as you don't grasp at things like the "world" as having a self, as having true existence. The Five Works of Maitreya have been published with commentaries of Thrangu Rimpoche and of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso, Bodhisattva Maitreya says there that the appearing world is name only. Thrangu Rimpoche glosses this as meaning that the world we perceive is mental processies. There is also a commentary of Vasubandhu to Maitreya's Madhyantavibhaga. The translator of Vasubadhu's Seven Works, Stephen Anacker, talks about humanity's "double vision", which I have understood in the way I tried to explain at the beginning. I think it is the meaning of Je Tsong Khapa also when he talks about "the emptiness of the bases of imputation". Through the teaching of the Gelugpa Lama Tarab Tulku I have experinced how what we perceive really is our own mental product, our mental projection, to such an extent that I realized that in reality music does not exist at all, art does not exist at all. They are really just mental projections of the experiencing consciousness, and of the collective human consciousness.

Aemilius wrote:For the second point: It refers to an experience of realizing that habitually we add some "thing" behind each name, each identity. When we cease doing it there is nothing extra anymore! See?

That seems to me to be escaping the main issue.

I'll rephrase my concern:

If there's "no identity (imputed by habit) that is separate from the thing itself", how can you have an identity (imputed by habit) in the first place, since there is none to have it?

What caused the initial imputation-by-habit -- since it is already identical with its object?

Images in a dream have identities with nothing behind them, that is one explanation of how it is similar in the daytime world.

Understanding how it all arises requires very subtle & penetrating mindfulness. It is explained in various Dzogchen teachings like the Wishgranting Prayer of Kuntu Zangpo etc.., as well as in the 12 links of Dependent Origination, or Pratitya Samutpada.

I fail to see how an arisal is conceivable if it is identical with its dreamed object. How can we tell them apart?

There may be the act of aris-ing (the activity), but nothing arisen.

It doesn't explain, though, how we could have identities - imputed by habit, or otherwise - since the act of dreaming is identical with the dreamed (identities).